Using Any and All Methods
by ncfan
Summary: 20 ways Shizune gains success. Angsty at some points.


Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto.

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When Tsunade and Shizune first enter a new town, Shizune makes sure to scout out all the seediest bars and gambling halls, so when her mistress disappears without a word, she at least knows where to look.

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During their time on the open road, Tsunade and Shizune developed a subtle system of signals, based on barely noticeable hand signs and body language. While Tsunade talked with gambling bosses and crime lords, Shizune would silently scout the room and send signals back to her mistress. _How many doors…how many windows…how many points of escape…how long and how hard you would have to fight to kill him…_

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Around seventeen when Shizune's arms started to resemble nothing so much as a pockmarked patchwork of skin and scars, and she realized that her body, though much longer and taller than that of most women, would always seem more like a child's than a woman's, she knew that she would never be like the other girls, good for physical enticement and seduction. So she cut her already short hair to even shorter, uneven lengths with the bluntest kunai in her set, and doubled her resolve to never wear makeup, because a plain girl is so much easier to forget than a plain girl trying to make herself look pretty.

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Tsunade needed a spy, someone who could fade into the shadows with ease, someone who could flit back and forth undetected. Shizune adopted a plain, non-descript yukata in coarse black linen, left loose at the front to hide what small curves she possesses (Shizune hasn't quite figured out how to remedy the fact that her obi only displays her small waist rather than hides it, or that her skirt hugs the curve of her legs) and a strange, slightly shuffling walk, and became nothing but a small, shapeless blob to anyone that might otherwise notice her.

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Shizune typically doesn't acknowledge that she _has_ a family name, and few know that one exists; it is present on her registration form, but nowhere else, not even on her medical records. Given names are much harder to track than surnames.

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Shizune tends to keep quiet in all situations, prying only when she feels it's needed. So much information potentially gleaned can be lost to one who runs their mouth.

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Shizune once killed a man by kissing him. She had previously in the evening applied a lacquer infused with an extremely rare toxin that left virtually no trace in the body. She had by then been dosing herself with the poison in question for years, and the toxin had absolutely no effect on her. The man abruptly dropped dead in fifteen minutes, and Shizune smiled.

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Tsunade quickly learned how easy it was to go too far while training Shizune; she broke two of Shizune's ribs and fractured her collar bone during their first session of dodge training. Shizune always attributed it to her not moving quickly enough, but vowed not to so severely injure a student if she ever took one on.

Years later, when Tsunade was training Sakura and Shizune had taken on Ino, the two teachers inadvertently started dodge training on the same day. Sakura had two broken ribs (coincidentally the same ribs Shizune had broken so many years ago), and Ino's only injuries was a torn muscle in her leg and two dozen tiny senbon holes.

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Both Shizune and Ino know what it's like to harbor secret feelings of inadequacy. Shizune encourages Ino not to let it consume her, while she tackles her own feelings with a metaphorical torch and pitchfork.

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Shizune learned long ago that the secret to going undetected while conducting an assassination mission is to kill quickly and quietly, to make sure the mark doesn't make any noise, and to make sure not to leave a mess—blood pools are the sort of things servants tend to notice.

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If it's someone you know, try not to look them in the eyes as you kill them. It helps with the nightmares.

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People tell far more to their doctors and their bartenders than they do to their one-night stands. Shizune is very familiar with the inner workings of a bar, thank you, and knows that there's more than one way to get information out of a man than sleep with him.

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Shizune rarely shows sadness, and even more rarely indulges in displays of anger, because Tsunade doesn't want to face those emotions, especially not in her.

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Shizune actually isn't a particularly cheerful or lighthearted person. But a perpetually cheerful, or at least congenial, personality doesn't tend to stand out in a crowd or in the minds of people who run or participate in less than legal operations, so any melancholy, bitterness and cynicism is shoved down to a place where even a Yamanaka's rifling wouldn't be able to find it, and Shizune rarely allows it to surface.

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Shizune bought Ton-ton when she was fifteen, so she wouldn't have such a hard time tracking Tsunade down when she went out to further prepare her own grave (aka drink). At first, Ton-ton took more of a shine to Tsunade, but after the frequent attempts on the blonde's part to sell/cook the nin pig, Ton-ton decided that she liked Shizune's company _much_ better.

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Shizune has little patience with her mistress' drinking habits, but she is resigned to the fact that there is very little that can distract Tsunade from her sake. If having the bottle with her is what it takes to make Tsunade do her work, Shizune will, if not gladly, willingly sneak a bottle of sake into Tsunade's office. Sometimes, Shizune is just a little too devoted to her mistress.

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Shizune doesn't drink often, but when she does, a few traits inherited from her mistress tend to show through: she drinks to excess. Shizune has become a master at hiding a hangover, and smiles through the marching band running roughshod over her brain.

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Tsunade is not a happy drunk. Sometimes, when she's drank enough, she dissolves into a weepy, trembling mass of flesh on the hotel room floor. Shizune closes the blinds and sets the lamp on the lowest settings she can without turning it off altogether, then sets about to the task of comforting her mistress.

Then, on particularly bad nights, Tsunade will cry out, and Shizune pales, because she can't be sure if Tsunade's crying out to one long dead, or if she's just mistaken Shizune for her uncle _again_, but it doesn't matter, because all it serves to do is reinforce her inadequacy and the knowledge that nothing she does to comfort her surrogate mother-figure will ever be enough.

Shizune does well not to speak of it in the morning when Tsunade is sane again, and if either of them are particularly pale or have reddened eyes and glittering cheeks, the other chooses to ignore it.

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When a patient dies under her hands, Shizune takes it personally. She carries that person's face with her in her mind, until she saves another life to even out the scales.

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At first Shizune was struck by squirming feelings of jealousy when she realized how quickly Sakura was advancing, and, by nature of her quick jumps and leaps, eclipsing her. She quietly wallowed in self-pity until she realized that the further shelving of her name, already quite obscure, served a purpose, one she could use and manipulate to her advantage.

She was even more invisible than she was before.


End file.
